Executing dynamically assigned functions while providing services

ABSTRACT

Methods, systems, and computer program products for applying actions during server system processing. Functional processing blocks where actions may be applied to a service request are identified. actions are dynamically associated with functional processing blocks. During execution of a functional processing block, a check is performed to determine whether an action is associated with the functional processing block. If an action is associated with a functional processing block, the action is applied during the functional processing block&#39;s execution. An evaluation may be performed to determine if an action should be applied before or after the functional processing block. The server system may comprise an XML data repository, providing access to XML data, based on identity information which is received with a client system request. A portion of the server system may be described in accordance with an XML schema.

RELATED APPLICATIONS

This Application is a Continuation of and claims benefit from U.S. patent application Ser. No. 11/347,448 (U.S. Pat. No. 8,572,576) that was filed Feb. 3, 2006 (issued Oct. 29, 2013), and that is a Continuation of and claims benefit from U.S. Pat. No. 7,024,662 that was issued on Apr. 4, 2006, and that claims priority from U.S. Provisional Application No. 60/275,809 that was filed on Mar. 14, 2001, each of which is incorporated herein by reference in its entirety.

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

1. The Field of the Invention

The present invention relates to the field of computer services. Specifically, the present invention relates to methods, systems, and computer program products for applying one or more functions during processing that may occur in a server providing one or more services.

2. Background and Related Art

Typically, before being deployed in a live system, services undergo significant testing to uncover programming errors and to evaluate performance. While useful, such testing often is able only to estimate full-scale use. As a result, certain program errors or performance problems may go undetected in development or testing environments. Finding these latent problems usually involves monitoring the operation of a service in one form or another. Furthermore, independent of programming errors or unexpected performance considerations, monitoring a service may be helpful in uncovering hardware failures and system attacks.

However, monitoring services for purposes of debugging, performance, hardware problems, system attacks, and the like, often involves various complex issues. For example, services by nature tend to be accessed by large numbers of clients. The shear volume of transactions can make monitoring services a significant exercise. Moreover, monitoring itself may introduce some amount of processing overhead. While the overhead for a single transaction is relatively small, the aggregate overhead for a large number of transactions may result in unacceptable levels of performance and skew any conclusions that are reached from the monitoring.

As a general rule, discovering problems through monitoring is an iterative process. For example, as noted above, it may be impractical to produce all possible monitoring information at all times, either due to the amount of monitoring information that will be produced or due to the negative effect that such monitoring may have on overall system performance. Therefore, monitoring often begins by detecting some type of high-level irregularity. Once discovered, the high-level irregularity may lead to more specific monitoring of increasingly specific processing or functionality until the problem's cause is discovered and corrected. After a particular problem is corrected, monitoring often returns back to the high-level system view.

In some systems, the iterative process of moving back and forth between high-level system monitoring and relatively lower level monitoring of specific service processing or functionality may require shutting services and/or servers down and restarting them. Furthermore, certain monitoring tools may require significant expertise to use, including programming skills. For many, the level of skill required may reduce the effectiveness of a particular monitoring tool or prevent its use all together. Also, monitoring tools are often specific to the environment in which they run, requiring administrators of heterogeneous systems to use different monitoring tools for each distinct system. Accordingly, methods, systems, and computer program products are desired for dynamically applying a function during any of various processing steps that may occur in providing a service to a client system.

BRIEF SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

The present invention extends to methods, systems and computer products for dynamically executing one or more functions at any of one or more processing steps that may occur in providing a service to a client system. In one embodiment, executing the one or more functions during identified processing steps provides significant flexibility for dynamically monitoring the operation of the service being analyzed. By identifying particular processing steps that are executed during operation of the service, specific functions may be designated for execution when the processing steps occur. These specific functions are dynamically associated with the processing steps so that the type and extent of monitoring can be adjusted quickly to allow for rapid and efficient problem diagnosis.

As a processing step executes, a check is performed to determine if an operation or action is associated with the processing step. This may include evaluating whether an associated operation should be performed before the processing step or after the processing step. Then, for processing steps with an associated operation, the operation is applied in conjunction with the execution of the processing step. Typically, the processing steps are related to processing requests from clients systems that are directed to a service. In these circumstances, request for the service is received, a response to the request is generated, and the response is sent to the client.

The response and request may be organized hierarchically within a network message. One popular hierarchical organization uses eXtensible Markup Language (“XML”) formatted data, with network messages being based on Simple Object Access Protocol (“SOAP”). Although binary data is contrary to the XML standard, the invention may include binary data within the hierarchical organization. For example, it may be desirable to attach certain debugging or diagnostic information to a request or response, and a binary format may be a convenient representation for that information.

Functions associated with processing steps may be predefined or custom, depending on monitoring needs or wants. Predefined functions are advantageous because certain operations or actions are likely to be commonly used in many monitoring scenarios and therefore predefined functions may provide enhanced value. By allowing for custom functions, individual monitoring circumstances may be addressed in a meaningful way. Describing at least a portion of the server system in terms of a hierarchical organization may add to the flexibility of custom functions and provide a mechanism for writing monitoring functions that are useful across multiple operating platforms. Here again, an organization based on XML may be desirable given the popularity and flexibility of the language.

Typical operations for functions may include a logging function and a filtering function. In general, logging functions write certain information to a log of some sort for analysis. Filtering functions may be used to end processing of a request and send a response to the requesting client. Among other things, logging and filtering may be useful in monitoring error conditions that occur while processing a client's request.

Additional features and advantages of the invention will be set forth in the description which follows, and in part will be obvious from the description, or may be learned by the practice of the invention. The features and advantages of the invention may be realized and obtained by means of the instruments and combinations particularly pointed out in the appended claims. These and other features of the present invention will become more fully apparent from the following description and appended claims, or may be learned by the practice of the invention as set forth hereinafter.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

In order to describe the manner in which the above-recited and other advantages and features of the invention can be obtained, a more particular description of the invention briefly described above will be rendered by reference to specific embodiments thereof which are illustrated in the appended drawings. Understanding that these drawings depict only typical embodiments of the invention and are not therefore to be considered as limiting its scope, the invention will be described and explained with additional specificity and detail through the use of the accompanying drawings in which:

FIG. 1 is a block diagram of an example server system embodiment that operates in accordance with the present invention;

FIG. 2A shows an example XML document corresponding to the example XML schema of FIG. 2B;

FIG. 2B illustrates an example XML schema corresponding to the example XML document of FIG. 2A;

FIG. 3A shows an example XML document corresponding to the example xPath statement of FIG. 3B;

FIG. 3B illustrates an example xPath statement corresponding to the example XML document of FIG. 3A.

FIG. 4A depicts the hierarchy of an example SOAP message;

FIG. 4B shows the request portion of an overall example hierarchy illustrated in FIG. 5;

FIG. 4C shows the response portion of an overall example hierarchy illustrated in FIG. 5;

FIG. 5 shows a more complete portion of a hierarchal organization for message processing corresponding to the example server system embodiment of FIG. 1;

FIG. 6 illustrates an example organization for assigning functions to processing steps in accordance with the present invention;

FIGS. 7A-7B show a flowchart of a method for executing one or more functions at any of one or ore processing steps in accordance with the present invention; and

FIG. 8 illustrates an exemplary system that provides a suitable operating environment for the present invention.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS

The present invention extends to methods, systems, and computer program products for applying one or more operations or actions during the processing that may occur in a server providing one or more services. Through the identification of discrete processing steps that are executed while a service operates, specific operations may be executed along with each processing step. These operations are dynamically associated with the processing steps such that as a processing step executes, a check is performed to determine if any operations exists for the processing step. For processing steps that include an operation, the operation is applied during execution of the processing step.

Embodiments within the scope of the present invention may comprise one or more special purpose and/or one or more general purpose computers including various computer hardware, as discussed in greater detail below. Embodiments within the scope of the present invention also include computer-readable media for carrying or having computer-executable instructions or data structures stored thereon. Such computer-readable media can be any available media that can be accessed by a general purpose or special purpose computer. By way of example, and not limitation, such computer-readable media can comprise physical storage media such as RAM, ROM, EEPROM, CD-ROM or other optical disc storage, magnetic disk storage or other magnetic storage devices, or any other medium which can be used to carry or store desired program code means in the form of computer-executable instructions or data structures and which can be accessed by a general purpose or special purpose computer. When information is transferred or provided over a network or another communications connection (either hardwired, wireless, or a combination of hardwired or wireless) to a computer, the computer properly views the connection as a computer-readable medium. Thus, any such connection is properly termed a computer-readable medium. Combinations of the above should also be included within the scope of computer-readable media. Computer-executable instructions comprise, for example, instructions and data which cause a general purpose computer, special purpose computer, or special purpose processing device to perform a certain function or group of functions.

FIG. 1 shows a block diagram of an example server system that operates in accordance with the present invention. The server system uses several distinct processing layers in processing a request 101 a from a client, including a parse layer, a security layer, a cryptography layer and a service layer. Each of these layers is divided into a request processing component and a response processing component. There are corresponding response and request components for each layer. Note, however, that the present invention is not necessarily limited to any particular process layering or component division.

On the request 101 a, an incoming request first passes through parse component 120 a. For example, parse component 120 a may be used to parse a request 101 a that includes XML data, such as the XML document 200A shown in FIG. 2A. By way of background, XML is a markup language that provides for data typing and namespaces. For XML document 200A, the default namespace is “x-schema:classSchema.xml” 201A(1). This informs the parser to validate the document against the schema “x-schema” at the URL “classSchema.xml.”

FIG. 2B shows the entire schema for the document of FIG. 2A. The op level of the schema is <Schema></Schema> element pair 200B that contains the declaration of the schema namespace and, in this case, the declaration of the “datatypes” namespace as well. The first, “xmins=“urn:schemas-microsoft-com:xml-data”,” 200B(1) indicates that this XML document is an XML Schema. The second, “xmlns:dt=“urn:schemas-microsoft-com:datatypes”,” 200B(2) allows for typing element and attribute content by using a “dt” prefix on the type attribute within their ElementType and AttributeType declarations.

“ElementType” assigns a type and conditions to an element, and what, if any, child elements it can contain; “AttributeType” assigns a type and conditions to an attribute; “attribute” declares that a previously defined attribute type can appear within the scope of the named ElementType element; and “element” declares that a previously defined element type can appear within the scope of the named ElementType element. The content of the schema begins with the AttributeType and ElementType declarations of the innermost elements, namely:

<AttributeType name=‘studentID’ dt:type=‘string’ 220B(1); required=‘yes’/> <ElementType name=‘name’ content=‘textOnly’/> 200B.1; and <ElementType name=‘GPA’ content=‘textOnly’ dt:type= 200B.2. ‘float’/>

The next ElementType declaration is followed by its attribute and child elements. When an element has attributes or child elements, they are in its ElementType declaration. They also are previously declared in their own ElementType or AttributeType declaration. In particular,

<ElementType name=‘student’ content=‘mixed’> 220B;   <attribute type=‘studentID’/> 220B(1)′;   <element type=‘name’/> 220B.1′;   <element type=‘GPA’/> 220B.2′; and </ElementType> 220B. The process is continued throughout the rest of the schema until every element and attribute has been declared:

<ElementType name=‘class’ content=‘eltOnly’> 201B;   <element type=‘student’/> ; </ElementType> 201B.

Notice that the reference numbers for the XML document shown in FIG. 2A correspond to the schema declarations in FIG. 2B. Specifically,

<class xmlns=“x-schema:classSchema.xml”> 201A;   <student studentID=“13429”> 220A;     <name>James Smith</name> 220A.1;     <GPA>3.8</GPA> 220A.2;   </student> 220A; </class> 201A.

The example XML document 300A in FIG. 3A will be used in conjunction with the xPath statement 300B shown in FIG. 3B. In general, xPath uses abstract document relationships in identifying parts of a document. For example, the xPath statement 300B locates Smith's numbers within the XML document 300A. Similar to FIGS. 2A and 2B, notice that the reference numbers for the XML document 300A of FIG. 3A correspond to xPath statement 300B of FIG. 3B.

Specifically, the “/descendant::contact” portion 301B of the xPath statement 300B maps to descendants of the <contact></contact> tag pair 301A. The “[name=“Smith”]” portion 320B selects the “<name>Smith</name>” 320A contact entry, and the “/child:numbers” portion 340B selects the <numbers></numbers> children of contact 301A. “/child::*” identifies the specific children (i.e., “<home>801-555-1234</home>” 340A.1 and “<cell>801-555-4321</cell>” 340A.2) that are of interest. (The star or asterisk is a wildcard indicating that all children are of interest.)

Referring back to FIG. 1, parse component 120 a includes before functions 122 a that are executed prior to parse component 120 a and after functions 124 a that are executed after parse component 120 a. Path 120 c shows that processing may proceed to parse 120 b on the response side following the operation of parse component 120 a. Proceeding to parse 120 b following parse 120 a may be the result of a parse error or may be dictated by before functions 122 a or after functions 124 a, in which case it makes little sense to continue on to security 130 a. For example, after at least some parsing, after functions 124 a may be able to determine that some problem exists with the request 101 a. After functions 124 a may determine that request 101 a is part of a denial of service attack or that request 101 a includes content or originates from a source that is blocked for some reason, such as inappropriate material or spam.

Parse component 120 a may indicate that processing should continue with security component 130 a. Security component 130 a determines the identity associated with the request 101 a. In one embodiment, this involves determining an application identifier, a user identifier, and a platform identifier for request 101 a, because the service layer provides storage and access to data that is identity specific. For example, a user may access the service layer for email, calendar items, contacts, etc., using both a PC and a handheld device. The security layer, and security component 130 a, determines the appropriate identity so that data and operations are appropriate to the device being used for access. Similarly, different users may be allowed different access to the same data. For example, an owner might be able to add, delete, and modify data, whereas a delegate may only have read privileges. The type of access permitted is controlled by role list database that contains various rules for determining access rights. Nevertheless, as noted the present invention does not necessarily require a security layer, and if one is present, it need not operate as security component 130 a. A failure in the security layer may result in proceeding along path 130 c or assigning default access privileges.

It may seem somewhat redundant to allow for both after functions 124 a in parse component 120 a and before functions 132 a in security component 130 a. However, because processing may proceed along path 120 c, functions 132 a will not necessarily be invoked for a request 101 a. Further, associating functions closely with a particular layer provides for greater clarity as to when the function will be executed. A similar analysis holds true for after functions 134 b of security component 130 b and before functions 122 b of parse component 120 b. It should be emphasized, nevertheless, that the present invention does not necessarily require the specific association of functions with processing steps that is shown in FIG. 1. Therefore, the assignment of functions to processing steps should be interpreted broadly to cover a wide range of function associations. From security component it 130 a, processing proceeds to either security component 130 b or to cryptography component 140 a.

Similar to other components, cryptography component 140 a includes before functions 142 a and after functions 144 a. Cryptography component 140 a is responsible for any decryption that is needed for request 101 a. In one embodiment, request 101 a is a Simple Object Access Protocol (“SOAP”) request, conforming to the hierarchy 400A illustrated in FIG. 4A. Basically, a SOAP message includes an envelope 420A with a header 420A.1 and a body 420A.2, where the envelope 420A is at the root level 401A.

FIG. 4B shows the request portion and FIG. 4C shows the response portion of an overall example hierarchy illustrated in FIG. 5. Here too, references have been selected so that corresponding portions are FIGS. 4A, 4B, and 4C are similarly numbered. The example hierarchy illustrated in FIG. 5 will be described in greater detail below. It should be noted that in FIG. 4B, envelope 420B is at the request level 401B (rather than the root level) and that the request level 401B includes additional information 440B. Envelope 420B continues to include header 420B.1 and body 420B.2. Likewise, in FIG. 4C, envelope 420C is at the response level 401C (rather than the root level) and the response level 401C includes additional information 440C. Envelope 420C continues to include header 420C.1 and body 420C.2.

Adding the request level 401B and the response level 401C removes ambiguity from the single root level 401A that is illustrated in FIG. 4A. As a result, it is clear whether a locator statement such as an xPath statement references a request 101 a or response 101 b (both of FIG. 1), without the need to determine the processing context of the xPath statement. The additional information 440B and 440C may be used to store information that may be helpful in monitoring a service. The additional information may comprise binary data, including a data structure or data object. For example, additional information 440C may contain a detailed error chain. The present invention is not limited to any particular type or format of additional information.

Returning now to FIG. 1, the body of a SOAP request is encrypted, so cryptography component 140 a performs the necessary decryption. Those of skill in the art will recognize that there is not much value to parsing an encrypted SOAP body. Therefore, parse 120 a may be limited initially to those portions of request 101 a that are not encrypted. Then, following cryptography 140 a, parse component 120 a may continue with the decrypted portions of request 101 a. At this point, it is worth noting that the flow from layer to layer need not be strictly sequential to fall within the scope of the present invention. A cryptography failure will result in proceeding with processing along path 140 c.

Following cryptography 140 a, processing proceeds to service 150 a and before functions 152 a and after functions 154 a. Service 150 a represents the processing that carries out the methods that may be included with request 101 a. For example, request 101 a may attempt to query, insert, replace, update or delete data maintained by service 150 a, such as email, calendar items, contacts, spreadsheet, word processing documents, or the like. Although described as a data store that is manipulated with XML, the present invention is not necessarily limited to any particular type or service, or any particular access mechanism for identity-specific data.

Turning next to the processing for response 101 b, service component 150 b prepares an appropriate response to the methods that may be included with request 101 a. For example a response may include data that is queried or indicate whether an insert, update, replace, or delete operation was successful or failed. Failures may include error codes of some sort, with more substantial debugging or error information in the response's additional information 440C (FIG. 4C). Service component 150 b includes before functions 152 b and after functions 154 b. Notice that the ordering of the before functions and after functions on the response side is opposite the ordering on the request side because the flow from layer to layer is reversed.

Cryptography component 140 b follows service component 150 b or path 140 c from cryptography 140 a. As indicated earlier, the body of a SOAP message is encrypted. For response 101 b, the cryptography layer, and cryptography component 140 b in particular, performs the encryption. Note that service component 150 b and cryptography component 140 b essentially perform analogous or complementary functionality for the corresponding service component 150 a and cryptography component 140 a of the respective layers.

The present invention, however, does not necessary require analogous or complementary functionality in each layer. For example, there is no analogous or complementary functionality provided by security 130 b. Nevertheless, it may still be desirable to allow for before functions 132 b and after functions 134 b, whether processing flowed from cryptography component 140 b or from security component 130 a through processing path 130 c.

Like security component 130 b, there is no analogous or complementary function of parse component 120 a to be performed by parse component 120 b. Still, before functions 122 b and after functions 124 b may provide desirable functionality in some circumstances. Both parse component 120 b and security component 130 b may simply pass whatever is present in response 101 b to the next level.

At this stage, it may be worth identifying some types of functions that may be applicable to each processing layer. Two examples of commonly applicable functions are logging and filtering. Logging is generally associated with monitoring, although not exclusively so. For performance, debugging, identifying hardware problems, detecting system attacks, and the like, logging may provide valuable information for each layer (both prior to and following execution of the layer). Filtering relates to terminating further processing, usually with respect to a request. Filtering might include detecting a denial of service attack or other type of attack, preventing access to certain content, such as pornographic material, stopping spam or other unsolicited interaction, or the like.

FIG. 5 shows a more complete portion of a hierarchal organization for message processing corresponding to the example server system embodiment of FIG. 1. Server 501 identifies at least one server that is responsible for providing one or more services. Note that server 501 provides services for messages directed to myInbox (540), messages directed to myCalendar (560), and messages directed to other services. In some circumstances it may be desirable for a single server to provide multiple services whereas in other circumstances it may be desirable for a server to provide only one service. In addition, a single server may be made up of multiple computers and multiple servers may be used to provide a single service. The present invention does not require any particular hardware configurations and each of the foregoing examples, including combinations thereof, is an example of a server system and should be included within the scope of the present invention.

Server 501 includes various status indicators 520, including alarms 520.1 and timers 520.2. These status indicators may be used by any of the processing layers shown in FIG. 1. Within myInbox 540, service configuration 520.3 and system document 520.4 contain configuration information, security information, identity information, and other data that may be necessary or useful a service. As noted earlier, for a particular message, such as message 540.3, request 540.3.1, with envelope 540.3.1.1, header 540.3.1.1.1, body 540.3.1.1.2, and additional information 540.3.1.2, and response 540.3.2, with envelope 540.3.2.1, header 540.3.2.1.1, body 540.3.2.1.2, and additional information 540.3.2.2, correspond to FIGS. 4B and 4C, respectively. FIG. 5 is one example of describing at least a portion of a server system in accordance with an XML schema. However, it should be emphasized that many other hierarchical arrangements are possible and that the present invention is not limited to any particular description.

FIG. 6 illustrates an action association list 600 for assigning functions to processing steps in accordance with the present invention. Action association list 600 identifies a layer 1 620 processing step, a layer 2 640 processing step, and other layer processing steps. Layer 1 620 processing step specifies whether a particular action should be executed before 620.1 layer 1 or after 620.2 layer 1. Prior to execution of layer 1, if xPathA 620.1.1 is present in the XML hierarchy 500 shown in FIG. 5, actionA is applied. Similarly, after execution of layer 1, if xPathB 620.2.1 is present in the XML hierarchy 500, actionB is applied, and if xPathC 620.2.2 is present in the XML hierarchy 500, actionC is applied. Depending on how actionB is defined, it is possible for xPathC to either be ignored or processed. Although no details are shown, before 640.1 and after 640.2 of layer 2 640 operate in an analogous fashion.

The present invention also may be described in terms of methods comprising functional steps and/or non-functional acts. The following is a description of acts and steps that may be performed in practicing the present invention. Usually, functional steps describe the invention in terms of results that are accomplished, whereas non-functional acts describe more specific actions for achieving a particular result. Although the functional steps and non-functional acts may be described or claimed in a particular order, the present invention is not necessarily limited to any particular ordering or combination of the acts and/or steps.

FIGS. 7A and 7B are a flow diagram that describe various acts and steps for methods according to the present invention. A step for identifying (710) one or more functional processing blocks where one or more operations or actions may be applied to one or more requests directed to one or more services may include acts of: defining (712) one or more processing steps within a server system that provides one or more services; defining (714) one or more functions that may be executed at any of the one or more processing steps; and describing (716) at least a portion of the server system in accordance with an XML schema. An act of defining (714) one or more functions should be interpreted broadly to include selecting a predefined function or creating a new function.

It should be noted that the terms such as “service,” “processing step,” “functional processing block,” “operation,” “function,” and “action” should be interpreted broadly to encompass a wide variety of computer processing. Often, the term “service” is used as a generic reference for some type of computer resource. For example, an embodiment of the present invention is described in the context of an overall service that provides access to identity-based data, with one or more individual services within the overall service being dedicated to particular types of data, such as email, contacts, calendar, tasks, documents, etc. As used in this application, therefore, “service” is not necessarily limited to any particular type of computing resource, and any service specifically identified should be interpreted merely as an example.

Similarly, the terms “processing step,” “functional processing block,” “operation,” “function,” and “action” are often used as generic references for some division or grouping of one or more computer instructions that accomplish a particular task. With reference to the service that provides access to identity-based data, “processing steps” and “functional blocks” generally are associated with the parsing, security, cryptography, and service operations, whereas “operations,” “functions,” and “actions” generally are associated with logging and filtering. Nevertheless, each of the foregoing terms is used throughout the application in a generic sense. The general associations identified above, therefore, should not necessarily be interpreted as limiting any of these terms to the specific examples used merely in describing an embodiment of the present invention. As such, “processing step,” “functional processing block,” “operation,” “function,” and “action” should not be limited to any particular division or grouping of computer instructions, and any more specific description should be understood simply to represent an example.

A step for dynamically associating (720) at least one operation or action for at least one of the one or more functional processing blocks may include acts of: assigning (722) at least one function to at least one of one or more processing steps; and an act of evaluating (724) whether the at least one dynamically assigned function should be executed either before or after the at least one of the one or more processing steps. A step for checking (730) whether or not any action has been associated with a particular functional processing block during execution of the particular functional processing block may include acts of: receiving (732) a request for one or more services from a client system; and evaluating (734) whether or not any function has been assigned to a processing step.

A step for applying (740) one or more associated operations or actions during execution of any function processing block with one or more associated actions may include acts of: executing (742) at least one assigned function at each processing step that has at least one assigned function; and terminating (744) any further processing on a request received from a client system. A step for responding (750) to a client system based on a request for one or more services from a client system may include acts of: generating (752) a response; and sending (754) the response to the client system.

Having now described the principles of the present invention in detail, it is noted that the precise hardware configuration that implements the above-described features is not important to the present invention. For example, it is not important to the principles of the present invention where the various components of FIG. 1 are implemented.

Nevertheless, for the sake of completeness, FIG. 8 and the following discussion are intended to provide a brief, general description of a suitable computing environment in which the invention may be implemented. Although not required, the invention will be described in the general context of computer-executable instructions, such as program modules, being executed by computers in network environments. Generally, program modules include routines, programs, objects, components, data structures, etc. that perform particular tasks or implement particular abstract data types. Computer-executable instructions, associated data structures, and program modules represent examples of the program code means for executing steps of the methods disclosed herein. The particular sequence of such executable instructions or associated data structures represents examples of corresponding acts for implementing the functions described in such steps.

Those skilled in the art will appreciate that the invention may be practiced in network computing environments with many types of computer system configurations, including personal computers, hand-held devices, multi-processor systems, microprocessor-based or programmable consumer electronics, network PCs, minicomputers, mainframe computers, and the like. The invention may also be practiced in distributed computing environments where tasks are performed by local and remote processing devices that are (either by hardwired links, wireless links, or by a combination of hardwired or wireless links) through a communications network. In a distributed computing environment, program modules may be located in both local and remote memory storage devices.

With reference to FIG. 8, an exemplary system for implementing the invention includes a general purpose computing device in the form of a conventional computer 820, including a processing unit 821, a system memory 822, and a system bus 823 that couples various system components including the system memory 822 to the processing unit 821. The system bus 823 may be any of several types of bus structures including a memory bus or memory controller, a peripheral bus, and a local bus using any of a variety of bus architectures. The system memory includes read only memory (ROM) 824 and random access memory (RAM) 825. A basic input/output system (BIOS) 826, containing the basic routines that help transfer information between elements within the computer 820, such as during start-up, may be stored in ROM 824.

The computer 820 may also include a magnetic hard disk drive 827 for reading from and writing to a magnetic hard disk 839, a magnetic disk drive 828 for reading from or writing to a removable magnetic disk 829, and an optical disc drive 830 for reading from or writing to removable optical disc 831 such as a CD-ROM or other optical media. The magnetic hard disk drive 827, magnetic disk drive 828, and optical disc drive 830 are connected to the system bus 823 by a hard disk drive interface 832, a magnetic disk drive-interface 833, and an optical drive interface 834, respectively. The drives and their associated computer-readable media provide nonvolatile storage of computer-executable instructions, data structures, program modules and other data for the computer 820. Although the exemplary environment described herein employs a magnetic hard disk 839, a removable magnetic disk 829 and a removable optical disc 831, other types of computer readable media for storing data can be used, including magnetic cassettes, flash memory cards, digital versatile discs, Bernoulli cartridges, RAMs, ROMs, and the like.

Program code means comprising one or more program modules may be stored on the hard disk 839, magnetic disk 829, optical disc 831, ROM 824 or RAM 825, including an operating system 835, one or more application programs 836, other program modules 837, and program data 838. A user may enter commands and information into the computer 820 through keyboard 840, pointing device 842, or other input devices (not shown), such as a microphone, joy stick, game pad, satellite dish, scanner, or the like. These and other input devices are often connected to the processing unit 821 through a serial port interface 846 coupled to system bus 823. Alternatively, the input devices may be connected by other interfaces, such as a parallel port, a game port or a universal serial bus (USB). A monitor 847 or another display device is also connected to system bus 823 via an interface, such as video adapter 848. In addition to the monitor, personal computers typically include other peripheral output devices (not shown), such as speakers and printers.

The computer 820 may operate in a networked environment using logical connections to one or more remote computers, such as remote computers 849 a and 849 b. Remote computers 849 a and 849 b may each be another personal computer, a server, a router, a network PC, a peer device or other common network node, and typically include many or all of the elements described above relative to the computer 820, although only memory storage devices 850 a and 850 b and their associated application programs 836 a and 836 b have been illustrated in FIG. 1. The logical connections depicted in FIG. 1 include a local area network (LAN) 851 and a wide area network (WAN) 852 that are presented here by way of example and not limitation. Such networking environments are commonplace in office-wide or enterprise-wide computer networks, intranets and the Internet.

When used in a LAN networking environment, the computer 820 is connected to the local network 851 through a network interface or adapter 853. When used in a WAN networking environment, the computer 820 may include a modem 854, a wireless link, or other means for establishing communications over the wide area network 852, such as the Internet. The modem 854, which may be internal or external, is connected to the system bus 823 via the serial port interface 846. In a networked environment, program modules depicted relative to the computer 820, or portions thereof, may be stored in the remote memory storage device. It will be appreciated that the network connections shown are exemplary and other means of establishing communications over wide area network 852 may be used.

The present invention may be embodied in other specific forms without departing from its spirit or essential characteristics. The described embodiments are to be considered in all respects only as illustrative and not restrictive. The scope of the invention is, therefore, indicated by the appended claims rather than by the foregoing description. All changes which come within the meaning and range of equivalency of the claims are to be embraced within their scope. 

What is claimed is:
 1. A method performed on a computing device that includes at least one processor and memory, the method comprising: processing an incoming request via each of at least one of a plurality of processing layers that are implemented at least in part by the computing device, where each of the plurality of processing layers comprises a first processing portion that is configured for performing a first processing step and a second processing portion that is configured for performing a second processing step, and where the incoming request is processed according to the first processing step of the first processing portion of the each of the at least one of the processing layers; assigning to each of at least one of the first processing portions or the second processing portions a pre-processing function that is configured for being executed prior to the corresponding first or second processing steps of the each of the at least one of the first processing portions or the second processing portions, where each of the pre-processing functions is configured for transitioning from the processing at one of the first processing portions to the generating at a corresponding second processing portion; and generating an outgoing reply via the each of the at least one of the plurality of processing layers, where each outgoing reply is generated according to a second processing step of the second processing portion of the each of the at least one of the processing layers.
 2. The method of claim 1 where the first processing portions are configured for the processing to proceed from a first of the first processing portions to a next of the first processing portions and so forth until the processing has proceeded through the plurality of the first processing portions.
 3. The method of claim 1 where the second processing portions are configured for the generating to proceed from a first of the second processing portions to a next of the second processing portions and so forth until the generating has proceeded through the plurality of the second processing portions.
 4. The method of claim 1 further comprising assigning to each of at least one of the first processing portions or the second processing portions a post-processing function that is configured for being executed after the corresponding first or second processing steps of the each of the at least one of the first processing portions or the second processing portions.
 5. The method of claim 4 where each of the post-processing functions is configured for transitioning from the processing at one of the first processing portions to the generating at a corresponding second processing portion.
 6. A system comprising: a computing device that comprises at least one processor and memory; the at least one processor configured to process an incoming request via each of at least one of a plurality of processing layers that are implemented at least in part by the computing device, where each of the plurality of processing layers comprises a first processing portion that is configured for performing a first processing step and a second processing portion that is configured for performing a second processing step, and where the incoming request is processed according to the first processing step of the first processing portion of the each of the at least one of the processing layers; the at least one processor further configured to assign to each of at least one of the first processing portions or the second processing portions a pre-processing function that is configured for being executed prior to the corresponding first or second processing steps of the each of the at least one of the first processing portions or the second processing portions, where each of the pre-processing functions is configured for transitioning from the processing at one of the first processing portions to the generating at a corresponding second processing portion; and the at least one processor further configured to generate an outgoing reply via the each of the at least one of the plurality of processing layers, where each outgoing reply is generated according to the second processing step of the second processing portion of the each of the at least one of the processing layers.
 7. The system of claim 6 where the first processing portions are configured for the processing to proceed from a first of the first processing portions to a next of the first processing portions and so forth until the processing has proceeded through the plurality of the first processing portions.
 8. The system of claim 6 where the second processing portions are configured for the generating to proceed from a first of the second processing portions to a next of the second processing portions and so forth until the generating has proceeded through the plurality of the second processing portions.
 9. The system of claim 6, the at least one processor further configured to assign to each of at least one of the first processing portions or the second processing portions a post-processing function that is configured for being executed after the corresponding first or second processing steps of the each of the at least one of the first processing portions or the second processing portions.
 10. The system of claim 9 where each of the post-processing functions is configured for transitioning from the processing at one of the first processing portions to the generating at a corresponding second processing portion.
 11. At least one memory device storing computer-executable instructions that, based on execution by a computing device that includes at least one processor and memory, configure the computing device to perform actions comprising: processing an incoming request via each of at least one of a plurality of processing layers that are implemented at least in part by the computing device, where each of the plurality of processing layers comprises a first processing portion that is configured for performing a first processing step and a second processing portion that is configured for performing a second processing step, and where the incoming request is processed according to the first processing step of the first processing portion of the each of the at least one of the processing layers; assigning to each of at least one of the first processing portions or the second processing portions a pre-processing function that is configured for being executed prior to the corresponding first or second processing steps of the each of the at least one of the first processing portions or the second processing portions, where each of the pre-processing functions is configured for transitioning from the processing at one of the first processing portions to the generating at a corresponding second processing portion; and generating an outgoing reply via the each of the at least one of the plurality of processing layers, where each outgoing reply is generated according to a second processing step of the second processing portion of the each of the at least one of the processing layers.
 12. The at least one memory device of claim 11 where the first processing portions are configured for the processing to proceed from a first of the first processing portions to a next of the first processing portions and so forth until the processing has proceeded through the plurality of the first processing portions.
 13. The at least one memory device of claim 11 where the second processing portions are configured for the generating to proceed from a first of the second processing portions to a next of the second processing portions and so forth until the generating has proceeded through the plurality of the second processing portions.
 14. The at least one memory device of claim 11 further comprising assigning to each of at least one of the first processing portions and the second processing portions a post-processing function that is configured for being executed after the corresponding first or second processing steps of the each of the at least one of the first processing portions or the second processing portions.
 15. The at least one memory device of claim 14 where each of the post-processing functions is configured for transitioning from the processing at one of the first processing portions to the generating at a corresponding second processing portion. 